We confirmed that residual catalytic activity of dnRAG1 could not account for this accumulation as dnRAG1 mice bred to a RAG1-deficient background U0126 purchase show no

evidence of B-cell or T-cell development beyond what is observed in RAG1−/− mice (see Supplementary material, Fig. S1). Follow-up studies on one of these lines, no. 15, show that in 12-week-old mice, the percentage and absolute number of B220lo CD19+ B cells is significantly higher in dnRAG1 mice than in wild-type (WT) mice in spleen, bone marrow (BM), lymph node (LN), peritoneal cavity (PC), and peripheral blood (PB), but the relative abundance of these cells compared with more conventional B220hi CD19+ B cells varies depending on tissue origin (Fig. 1c; see Supplementary material, Fig. S2a). The abundance and distribution of T-cell

subsets is not significantly different between WT and dnRAG1 animals in the thymus or spleen (see Supplementary material, Selleckchem 3Methyladenine Fig. S2b,c). In lymph nodes, CD4+ T cells show a modest, but statistically significant increase in dnRAG1 mice compared with WT mice (see Supplementary material, Fig. S2b,c). As the B220lo CD19+ B-cell phenotype in dnRAG1 mice was so striking, we focused our efforts to characterize the accumulation of these cells and did not investigate T-cell subsets further. Examining the ontogeny of these cells demonstrated that the frequency of B220lo CD19+ B cells steadily increases with age, with significant differences detected in the spleen by 4 weeks of age, eventually comprising ∼ 35% of splenic lymphocytes by about 12 months selleckchem of age (Fig. 1d). Other than a mild splenic hyperplasia, older dnRAG1 exhibited no obvious indications of disease that would distinguish them from their normal littermates, suggesting that B220lo CD19+ B-cell accumulation has no significant impact on the health of the animals. Because

peritoneal B1 B cells display a B220lo CD19+ phenotype,27 we speculated that splenic B220lo CD19+ B cells in dnRAG1 mice may express other surface markers indicative of a B1 B cell. A hallmark of the B1a B cell is the expression of CD5.27 Extensive flow cytometric analysis revealed that splenic B220lo CD19+ cells in dnRAG1 mice also express CD5, and have a surface phenotype characterized as sIgMhi sIgDint CD21− CD23− CD24−CD43lo AA4.1− CD11b− (Fig. 1e, and data not shown). This immunophenotype is quite similar to peritoneal B1a B cells, except that the peritoneal subset expresses slightly lower levels of sIgD and also expresses CD11b (Fig. 1e). The lack of CD11b expression is also consistent with the reported phenotype of splenic B1 cells from wild-type BALB/cByJ mice reported by others.28 To determine whether dnRAG1 mice exhibit defects in B-cell maturation, we stained bone marrow and spleen with antibodies to differentiate the various stages of B-cell development.